The grand old men of the history of chess Antonius van der Linde (1833-1897) and Tassilo von der Lasa (1818-1899) made a great effort to clarify the most significant event of the history of chess: the birth and gradual introduction of the figure of the Queen. Their study of ancient documents reflecting the new style of play (the current movements of the Queen and the Bishop) are of great value.

This study was however never completed, as although rigorous independent researchers such as themselves were involved, the key documents had still not come to light.  They located Italian and French documents from the late 15th and early 16th centuries which they believed to be contemporary with the book by Lucena (Salamanca, c. 1497) that they were familiar with and had investigated. This study had already led them to infer that modern chess must have originated in one of these three countries some 20 to 30 years before the close of the century.

Such is the origin of what can be called the theory of the three homes of axedrez de la dama (queen chess), but in the absence of the previous Spanish sources an Italian or French origin seemed more likely. It is true that von der Lasa sensed that the book by Francesch Vicent, which was printed in Valencia in 1495 and is the first published chess treatise in the world, could be the key to the matter; it is for this reason that he advocated a search for it.

The discovery of the Valencian poem Scachs d´amor in 1905, and above all its dissemination by José Paluzíe in the years 1911-1912, was to be the first decisive milestone on the road to the resolving of the matter.  With his greatest work at the printer’s, Murray became aware of the finding and announced the antiquity of the codex, although he decided to keep the matter open.

The debate was reopened by scholars in the 1980s and 1990s with the publication of decisive studies by Yuri Averbakh  and  Ricardo Calvo, this time with the hope of resolving the mystery. Averbakh reconstructed Vicent’s book in a convincing manner and expounded his idea that the books of Lucena and Damiano (Rome, 1512) had taken the arrangements of modern chess from the book in the Valencian language. Calvo examines the matter more thoroughly in his study of the poem Scachs d´amor, and points out that an important part was played by German printers (Lope de  la Roca and Hutz) in the dissemination of modern chess by the literary circle of Bernat Fenollar.

Reponses to these new ideas were not long in coming to defend an Italian or French origin, and another century came to a close with the debate apparently impossible to resolve.

But there was now no turning back on the road opened by Averbakh and Calvo. Although the task ahead was a tough one, José Antonio Garzón (Chelva, 1963) was willing to tackle it.

The logic of the birth of modern chess in Valencia is based on the fact that the two key documents (the Scachs d'amor on the origin and Vicent’s book on the international dissemination of the new form of chess) are both from Valencia. This being so, at least three matters had to be addressed in search of the necessary agreement among the major contemporary historical researchers, which were:

• Dating the poem precisely and authoritatively.
• Providing a scientific guarantee of the content of Vicent’s book.
• Assuming the burden of proof with a meticulous study of all technical documents on chess of the period (1450-1530) in which the new playing style was conceived and spread so as to be sure that no older documents exist.

In the initial stage Garzón decided to concentrate on clarifying the mystery of Vicent’s book, as reputed bibliographers still doubted it had ever been published. He provided several pieces of evidence of the publishing of the book in Valencia in 1495, of its content (modern chess) and even of the existence of a copy today, the whereabouts of which is unknown.

His subsequent collaboration in the documented work of Govert Westerveld, in which the date of 1475 for Scachs d´amor is already proposed, was also decisive. He goes deeper into Westerveld’s idea that marro de punta (which we know today as draughts) was invented in Valencia as a derivation of modern chess. This is an important point, as it can be established today without fear of error that marro de punta was already being played in Valencia by 1495 or a few years earlier. It follows from this that the third testimony of the playing of modern chess also comes from Valencia: the creation of a game that has taken the promotion of the queen from modern chess in which pawns are crowned when they reach the edge of the board.

In the work El regreso de Francesch Vicent. La Historia del nacimiento y la expansión del ajedrez moderno (2005), after 15 years of research the author assumes the burden of proof with the criterion expounded above. With two new findings he is able to date the poem definitively (Valencia 1475); this year coincides in its turn with the date of the creation of the new piece, the Queen. The study of all the documents on new chess allows him to define the dependency of some on others and to establish an  exact chronology . His research rules out the possibility of the existence of that a 15th-century document from outside Spain on modern chess. However, the most significant of his contributions is that of  the appearance of Vicent’s book with its 100 problems, copied in a manuscript  by its author in the early 16th century, probably when he was the chess tutor of Lucrecia Borgia. It is surprising to see how exactly this coincides with the reconstruction proposed by Averbakh 20 years earlier. The original text in Valencian, which survives in some of these arrangements, shows that Lucena’s book was actually a Spanish translation of Vicent’s with the addition of 50 medieval problems, i.e. it represents a regression regarding the book printed in Valencia.  

It must be stressed that Vicent’s book was not as little known as was previously thought, as all the problems of the book by the  enigmatic author who lurks behind the pseudonym “ Damiano ”  are to be found in the 1495 edition. This book, which led to the introduction of modern chess into Italy in an unusual bilingual edition (Spanish-Italian) went through 8 editions in the 16th century alone, clearly as derivations of the Vicent.

The current situation of the subject,  as expounded in numerous books and articles  and in particular in those published in the first decade of the 21st century, reflects that the necessary international agreement among scholars has been achieved. The latter now recognise Valencia’s importance in introducing the new style of play with the creation of the queen and also in promoting the dissemination of the new rules courtesy of the printing press.

The names of Bernat Fenollar, Francí de Castellví, Narcís Vinyoles, and above all Francesch Vicent have a very important place, not only in the history of chess but also in that of Valencian and Spanish culture.